


Hoodoo

by Winddrag0n



Category: SAKANA
Genre: M/M, Medieval Fantasy AU, Stockholm Syndrome, dubcon, mentions of rape/non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 21:37:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6724534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winddrag0n/pseuds/Winddrag0n
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arata is an all-powerful sorcerer who won't stop kidnapping Yuudai.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hoodoo

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this as a joke and then it got away from me I'm so sorry

The sorcerer first came when Yuudai was 19. He appeared in the throne room with a huge cloud of smoke, and when the air cleared, the royal guard had drawn their weapons and taken their places in front of the king and queen. At least Yuudai assumed it had gone something like that; neither him nor any of his brothers had been present at the time, until the mysterious intruder had summoned them all with a look of disappointment, of all emotions.

Genji, the oldest, had been sleeping, and jumped up rather unsteadily after being dropped a foot onto the marble floor. The second, Taro, diverted his sword strike at the last minute to make the weapon clang on the floor and jolt out of his hands. The two youngest, Taisei and Jiro, not even a year apart, sat on the floor holding cards, and Yuudai himself, the middle brother, had been sitting in a chair reading a book. He fell onto his ass ungracefully and with a yelp.

“Hmm,” the sorcerer pondered, drawing all the attention in the room to himself. “I guess you weren’t lying about not having any daughters, then.”

As the only one who had managed to be summoned facing the opposite direction, Yuudai turned around to get a good look at the guy, and immediately averted his eyes. He had shaggy black hair, a pointed nose, and a bit of a beard going on, and although most of his body was covered by the dark grey robes, Yuudai could see enough to pick out that the man was rather muscular. An inch or so shorter than him, but still exactly his type. Checking out the strange and highly likely to be dangerous intruder wasn’t the wisest course of action, but the stick-thin man couldn’t really help himself. At least if he was to be killed, it’d be by someone hot.

“Alright, alright,” the man continued, waving his hands dismissively. “Line up then, stand up straight, let me get a look at all of you.” What could it hurt? Yuudai did as he was asked. He glanced around and noticed his brothers doing the same. It was a bit odd that they were following orders, especially Taro, and when he looked for the soldiers he saw them standing back, weapons sheathed and set down, and it hit Yuudai that something was very wrong.

“Too sweaty,” the sorcerer muttered, looking over Jiro and shaking his head. The poor boy was, in fact, sweating bullets, and Yuudai could practically feel the rage radiating off of Taro next to him. “Too tall, yikes.” Taisei was brushed aside. As the man passed Yuudai, a small smile played across his lips and a shiver went down the blonde’s spine, but the stranger continued on. “Absolutely not.” Taro was rejected promptly, but he came to a stop in front of Genji. He paused, and looked the man up and down several times. “No,” he whispered, raising a hand to the man’s cheek to slap it lightly. “You don’t need anything more.”

Seemingly satisfied, the man twirled around, and Yuudai tried to push the sick feeling of disappointment out of his head. He wasn’t even good enough to be kidnapped by a psychopath; he really shouldn’t be surprised. “Well!” The sorcerer clapped his hands together, apparently having come to some sort of a conclusion. “This is still very good! I think I can get into this, yeah. I’ll be taking him with me, alright? Everyone is okay with that? Perfect!”

This would probably the the last time he would see his eldest brother, so Yuudai turned to look at the older man and burn his face into his memories forever. While they didn’t always get along, they were still brothers, and Yuudai might miss him at some point. Finally the man disappeared, and all Yuudai saw was darkness. The spell must have a blinding side effect. He continued to stare, waiting for his vision to return, and patterns began to appear in the darkness, geometric, almost brick like. A faint red flickering lit parts of the pattern, highlighting cracks and imperfections. Well, this certainly was an odd blinding spell.

“You okay, bud?” A hand tapped his shoulder, startling him. He whipped his head back around and found himself looking into the eyes of the sorcerer. The man’s pupils were eerie, shaped like perfect diamonds; maybe it was a sorcerer thing? Confused, Yuudai looked around. He was definitely not in the castle anymore, and by the looks of it, only the two of them were there. “Great! What’s your name?”

“Y-Yuudai,” the blonde stammered, still trying to figure out what exactly had happened.

“I’m Arata. You’re gonna be living here now, so make yourself at home, okay?” Arata slapped Yuudai on the back and laughed. “Got some errands to run, be back in a bit. Don’t worry about touching anything dangerous, you won’t be able to anyways. See you!” And then the man was gone.

Arata’s home was a huge, spiraling tower. While Yuudai wasn’t treated like a prisoner, he couldn’t leave either; every time he opened the front door and walked out, he found himself entering the tower instead, and eventually he gave up. The sorcerer was surprisingly kind and increasingly flirtatious, and Yuudai had no idea how to react to the advances. Fortunately, he didn’t have to figure it out, because two weeks after his abduction the full force of the kingdom’s army arrived to take him back. Arata sent him away without a fight, saying goodbye with a wave and a “See you later, bud.” 

The second time was a full year later, and Yuudai was 20. He was in town, talking to the people there, browsing some wares, when he noticed someone leaning over his shoulder. Irritated by the stranger’s proximity, he was about to whip around and ask them what their problem was when a familiar deep voice began speaking.

“What’cha looking at, bud?”

He turned to face the sorcerer but the world spun, and before he knew it he found himself back in the dark stone tower, still holding the book he had been looking at. “What the-”

“It’s been a while, yeah?” Arata was facing him now, grinning as he shucked off the billowing robes.

Yuudai was so shocked he didn’t even react to the close-fitting tunic and pants the other man was wearing. “What the hell just happened?”

Arata frowned. “Well, I just kidnapped you again, didn’t I? I thought that would have been pretty obvious.”

“But… why?”

Sighing, the man collapsed onto a cushioned bench and shrugged. “Do you really need a reason?”

“I mean… kind of.”

“Just relax!” Arata shifted on the bench, throwing his arms along the back, and opening his legs to take up as much space as he could. “I’m sure we can find plenty of fun things to do.”

Yuudai gulped.  _ Now _ he was acutely aware of the other man’s attire. “How about you just send me back instead?” It was a long shot, but he figured it was worth a try.

It earned him another frown. “Dude, are you an idiot? Do you know what ‘kidnapped’ means?”

“It means…” Yuudai barely caught himself in time; best not to push his luck, having just been abducted by a potentially disastrously powerful sorcerer. “Yeah, I know.”

“Got some self-preservation instincts after all, do ya? Boring.” The black-haired man patted the space next to him on the bench, clearly indicating that other man should sit.

“I’m fine standing,” Yuudai never said, instead finding himself walking over to sit next to his captor. Fucking magic. He sat with a ‘thwomp’, and while the sorcerer didn’t put his arm around him, he didn’t pull it away either. “Okay, but,” Yuudai began, trying desperately to distract himself from how fucking close the stranger was all of a sudden. “Why did you get me again?”

“‘Cuz you were the hottest,” came the even reply, and Yuudai choked. “Oh, did you mean this time specifically?”

“Yep,” the blonde squeaked, bright red.

“Eh, just finished with a princess, and this seemed more fun than finding another one. They fuckin’ whine man, like you would never believe. They’re always so scared too. Gets real old real fast.”

A chill went down Yuudai’s spine, and the gravity of his situation finally started to sink in. The magician next to him practically just admitted to being a serial kidnapper, and he was powerful enough to make the skinnier man do whatever he wanted. Hell, he could probably just physically overpower him and leave magic out of it entirely. Still, what could Arata possibly want from him? He was no princess, and as the middle son he didn’t really have any importance to the kingdom. Genji was set to take over the throne, Taro was nearing the day he took over commanding the armies, and Jiro and Taisei were doted on as the youngests. Yuudai just sort of… existed.

“You done yet?” Arata sighed, startling Yuudai out of his reverie.

“Done with w-what?” the blonde stammered, a bit shaken up.

“Overthinking,” the sorcerer muttered, suddenly grabbing a fistful of the other man’s hair. He roughly pulled Yuudai down, laying him on his side, head in the magician’s lap. Restlessly, he ran his hands through the short blonde locks. “‘Kinda nice,” he murmured.

Yuudai, wisely, said nothing. 

“Should be a bit longer. Grow your hair out more, alright?” and Yuudai found himself nodding.

The days passed in a sort of strained, awkward calm, until Taro rode up with an army to collect his brother a month later, armed with excuses to explain the delayed rescue.

An odd pattern emerged over the course of the next year. Every few weeks Arata would materialize and whisk Yuudai away, and he was brought back by armies that rapidly shrunk in size. Soon he was being picked up by bands of maybe ten men, and he was lucky if anyone important had tagged along. The one constant was his tall, silent guard; Shigeru. Every so often a younger brother tagged along, generally Taisei, and his guard Jan was a common guest as well. Arata even offered refreshments once, and Jan looked about ready to take him up on that offer when Shigeru ushered them away.

Not long after Yuudai’s 21st birthday, a princess arrived in the kingdom, clad in shining armor and asking for Jiro’s hand in marriage. Nobody knew quite how to handle the situation, Jiro being amongst them, but the king took a shining to the princess and agreed to marry his youngest away. It was in this period of chaos when, once again, Arata spirited Yuudai away.

“Is this just going to be my life from now on?” Yuudai spat, stumbling from the initial teleportation. “Being shuttled around between two places like a fucking letter?”

“Hey, now,” Arata laughed back, “it’s not my fault they keep coming to take you back.”

“Don’t you have princess to abduct or something? There’s one at our kingdom  _ right now. _ ”

Normally, that would have been met with a similar barb, but this time the sorcerer just looked at Yuudai, staring intently. “Hmm. I wonder.” A hand reached out and carded through the blonde strands, which had, against Yuudai’s will, avoided scissors for the past year. “Chie’s not really my type anyways. Your hair, this is a good length for it. Keep it like this.”

“Whatever,” Yuudai muttered, knocking the other man’s hand away. He couldn’t outright disobey his abductor, but he had gotten quite good at making his life as difficult as possible. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he was starting to lose track of if it was the magic forcing him or something else altogether. Those were dangerous thoughts, and he avoided him whenever he could.

“Hey,” Arata said softly, sitting on the familiar padded bench. “Come here. I wanna try something.”

“What do you mean?” Yuudai hung back, not feeling the familiar pull quite yet. 

“Come,” and the pull now drew him over, and he was roughly grabbed by Arata. “You’ll do what I say.”

Much later, Yuudai was naked and in Arata’s bed, head in his hands, wondering what in the hell had just happened. Arata was next to him, head resting on his arms, a look of excitement on his face. “We could have been doing that this  _ whole time, _ ” he whispered, and Yuudai abruptly realized his life was about to change significantly.

This time, when Shigeru’s band came to collect him, Yuudai said nothing.

Arata appeared even more frequently now, barely giving Yuudai any time to actually live at the castle, and the rescue parties shrunk even further. At home, everyone was preoccupied with what soon turned into a proposal and potential wedding, and now that his brother and best friend had been whisked away, Taisei was spending more and more time with Yuudai. The pair were like water and oil initially, but soon found a common interest in literature. On days when Taisei was simply too much to handle, Yuudai found himself frequently sitting with his guard, sometimes in complete silence.

“Yeh kno’ ah’ll always come fer yah, yeh?” Shigeru suddenly said on one such day.

“Hmm?” Yuudai set down the book he had been reading. “What do you mean?”

“Tha’ magician. Th’ parties may hav’ ben gettin’ smaller but they’ll nevah stop comin’.”

“It’s okay, I understand. It’s not like you guys have to fight him or anything.” Truthfully, Yuudai did care, and every time he was picked up by a group of four or five men it felt like knives being stabbed into his heart. He was nothing more than an annoyance at this point, a waste of precious time and resources. They should really just leave him to rot. Arata would probably get sick of him eventually anyways. There were so many things Yuudai wanted to say, but instead all he said was “Thank you.”

Three months before Yuudai’s 22nd birthday, Genji defected, and took a hefty chunk of the nation’s army with him. 

“This is unacceptable!” Taro roared, beating a fist on the table. “We must declare war!”

“Calm yourself, Taro,” Ren replied. The air in the room was very tense, and the anger radiated from the young man like fire. “He took too many men. Ryoji’s kingdom would destroy us.”

“So we’re just going to let him get away with treason?”

Even Yuudai bristled at the accusation. Ren was not one to ignore injustices, much less those levied at his own people.

“Taro,” came the terse reply, and the man finched away. He bowed before the king and apologized, and Ren continued. “We can rush Jiro’s marriage to Chie. The alliance it forms should provide us with an army more than large enough to crush Ryoji.”

“Feh.” Taro seemed dissatisfied, but let the matter drop. The meeting went on for some time, and finally Yuudai stumbled away, sick of the fury and tension. He didn’t get very far before he was pulled away by his older brother.

“Do you need something?” Yuudai spat, irritation building.

“You have to be able to get him to help,” Taro hissed back.

“‘Him’? Who the hell are you talking about?” Yuudai knew even less people than Taro, so the request seemed bizarre. He wracked his brain, trying to think of the one person they didn’t have in common, and when he found it his jaw dropped. “Do you mean  _ Arata?” _

“Yes!” the shorter man cried. “With a sorcerer on our side we’d make mincemeat out of Ryoji’s armies!”

“He’s not my fucking friend!” the blonde shot back, rapidly approaching furious. “Do you think I’m running out to visit him every couple of weeks? He’s still  _ kidnapping  _ me!”

“Cut the shit, Yuudai. You practically live there, and it’s obvious you’re sleeping with him.”

“What?!” Now the anger had peaked, and Yuudai could feel nothing else. “Do you mean how he fucking  _ rapes _ me every time he takes me away? Have you forgotten you literally cannot disobey him?”

“You expect me to believe you? Every time we send precious men there to pick your ass up he just sends you away without a fight! No one cares if you’re sleeping with men, but stop fucking wasting our time like this!”

The punch was almost automatic, and Taro didn’t even flinch. Yuudai was knocked flat by the one that same flying back. Men came running out of nowhere to split the brothers up, but not before Taro had a bloody nose and Yuudai’s eye was swelling up. The next time Arata came Yuudai was outright hostile, and paid for it.

Steadily, the kingdom marched towards conflict. The wedding was grand but the festivities were muted, with battle just on the horizon. Jiro went back with Chie to her kingdom, came back with a massive army, and then they were at war.

Yuudai wanted to fight. He wanted to prove he could defend his home and be of use, but his father insisted he would simply be abducted and, at worst, distract his fellow soldiers, so he was forced to stay home. Like clockwork, Arata kept coming, and Yuudai could feel the animosity rolling off the others around the castle. Why should he stay home, safe, while the rest of the men were out dying for his country? Everyone was hard at work and he was off vacationing with his lover. The eyes bored into him as he walked around the castle, and Arata’s tower was the only place he could relax. Soon, he found himself almost looking forward to the scruffy, smirking man, and with this newfound confusion Yuudai finally turned 23.

“C’mere,” Arata ordered, and Yuudai went before he even felt the pull. “Take this.” A broad hand gripped Yuudai’s wrist, and tied something around it. It was a pendant of some sort, a fish-like monster with many protrusions, tied on a golden string.

“A bracelet?” Yuudai wondered aloud, examining it. The many appendages on the creature looked fragile, but even with just a careful touch he could tell it was sturdy. 

“A necklace seemed kinda weird.” Arata shrugged.

“What’s it for?”

The sorcerer pouted. “Can’t I just give you a gift?”

“Not really,” Yuudai replied evenly, still examining the pendant.

“Man, you’re really not cute sometimes.” A huff. “We can keep doing this… whatever it is, alright?”

_Kidnapping? Hostage-taking?_ _Abuse?_ These thoughts swirled around Yuudai’s mind, but he had long since learned what lines not to cross.

The sorcerer continued. “If you ever decide you want to stop dancing around like this, smash that thing. I’ll come get you, wherever, whenever, and no one will ever take you back again.”

Startled, Yuudai let go of the bracelet, and it slapped against his wrist. “W-what? Why? I don’t want this!” He tried to untie the string, only to find the knot had disappeared.

“I knew you’d react like this,” Arata sighed, rubbing his temples. “You can’t take that off, but you also can’t smash it unless you truly want to, alright?”

Instantly, Yuudai tried to crush the pendant in his fist, but it didn’t give. Arata stared at him, eyes wide. “Hmm. Guess you’re right.”

The magician let out a laugh. “You really have no sense of danger, do you? What if I had been lying?”

“I’m not entirely sure I care anymore,” Yuudai muttered, and for a fleeting moment the sorcerer’s eyes went soft.

Time passed, and the war ended, Ren’s kingdom victorious, but at a price. Many men were lost, and Taro and Jiro returned with their heads bowed. Taisei did not come home.

Yuudai retreated in on himself. Occasionally, he would talk with Shigeru, but he would typically keep to himself and pass the time reading. No one else bothered with him, except for Arata. The visits were becoming more frequent, and he began to stay with Yuudai at the castle instead, vanishing back to his tower when somebody neared. The full-scale abductions were becoming less and less frequent, and so the men sent to bring him back reduced even further, until the day when finally, then only one who came to get him was Shigeru.

“It’s time t’go back,” the tall man drawled, facing Arata and Yuudai.

“Alright,” the blonde sighed, and tried to step forward, to find that he could not.

“Naw,” Arata answered. “I think I’m done with this. He’s gonna stay here now, alright?”

Shigeru drew his sword. “Ahm sorry?”

“I said,” Arata hissed, palms crackling with energy, “he’s staying here.”

“Shigeru, don’t!” Yuudai cried, but the man charged, and the sword was ripped out of his hands and turned against him. He dodged backwards, barely in time, but two of his fingers fell to the dirt, blood dripping from the stumps. “Arata, shit! I’ll stay, but stop!” Desperate, he grabbed the magician’s robe, and shook his arm with all his might.

“Don’t distract me!” Arata roared, turning on the blonde, who hissed with pain. Blood ran from the cross-shaped cut on his cheek, a wound caused by magic gone out of control.

Almost immediately, the magic blinked out of existence. “Yuudai, fuck! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-” but Yuudai flinched away, and Arata fell silent.

“Go,” the raven-haired man finally said. “Go back. I won’t come anymore.” Hesitantly, Yuudai stepped towards Shigeru, taking a few more when he found himself able to move. “But, Yuudai…” Despite himself, the blonde turned back, and found an unreadable expression in those diamond eyes. “I’ll be waiting.”

Ren was alarmed at the state of the two men once they returned, but was relieved to hear the sorcerer would no longer be an issue. Life at the castle moved along. Taro blamed Yuudai for Taisei’s death, and regularly took his anger out on the weaker man, physically and otherwise. Jiro spent most of his time in Chie’s country, and Ren was busy running the kingdom, so no one noticed the harsh looks and cruel treatment Yuudai had begun getting from most of the royal guard. As captain, Taro held a lot sway with the men, and they tormented the blonde at any chance. They would sneer and talk about how he was disgusting and useless, and Yuudai couldn’t find the words to prove them wrong. When exactly had he stopped resisting? He toyed with the pendant trapped on his wrist whenever he was stressed, and before long he locked himself in his room indefinitely.

Everything continued like this, and Yuudai turned 25.

“Shigeru,” he called, and his guard came over. Yuudai folded a paper over, sealed it in an envelope, and stamped it with his seal. “I need you to deliver this to Jiro for me.”

“Alrigh’, ah’ll bring it teh the courier.”

“No, I want you to deliver it yourself.”

“That important?”

“Yes,” Yuudai lied, and he gently pressed on the pendant. It gave slightly, as if it was ready to crumble at any moment. “It’s extremely important that you deliver this.”

Shigeru nodded, and rode away with the letter.

Three days later, Yuudai sat in his windowsill, staring at the garden hundreds of feet below. The pendant sat in one hand, fragile, fracturing. 

Arata was different. He had treated him well, all things considered. Had he ever TRULY been forced? Violence had never been used, saved for the time Arata fought Shigeru, and that had been an accident. There had been countless little moments of kindness, rarely followed by persuasion and magic. Time and time again, Yuudai had found himself enjoying the company, and the freedom from the stress of the castle. The older man was Yuudai’s sole remaining human contact, and even that he had lost. It was too much. The hole it had left was too large.

Yuudai sighed, and closed his fist, shattering the figure. Instantly, the sky went dark. Taking a deep breath, he slid off the windowsill, closing his eyes to await whatever caught him first.


End file.
